Theories of Surplus Value, Marx 1861-3
||VI-220| All economists share
the error of examining surplus-value not as such, in its
pure form, but in the particular forms of profit and
rent. What theoretical errors must necessarily arise
from this will be shown more fully in Chapter III, in the
analysis of the greatly changed form which surplus-value
assumes as profit.
[Chapter I] Sir James Steuart
[Distinction Between “Profit Upon Alienation” and the Positive Increase of Wealth]
Before the Physiocrats, surplus-value — that is, profit in the form of profit — was explained purely from exchange, the sale of the commodity above its value.
Sir James Steuart on the whole did not get
beyond this restricted view; he must rather be regarded as the man who
reproduced it in scientific form. I say “in scientific
form”. For Steuart does
not share the illusion that the surplus-value which accrues to the individual
capitalist from selling the commodity above its value is a creation of new wealth.
He distinguishes therefore between positive profit and
relative profit.
“Positive profit, implies
no loss to any body;
it results from an augmentation of labour, industry, or ingenuity,
and has the effect of swelling or augmenting the public good …
Relative profit, is what implies a loss
to some body; it marks a vibration of the balance of wealth between parties,
but implies no addition to the general stock …
The compound is easily understood; it is that species of
profit …, which is partly relative,
and partly positive … both kinds may subsist inseparably
in the same transaction.” (Principles of Political Economy, Vol. I,
The Works of Sir James Steuart,
etc., ed. by General Sir James Steuart, his son, etc., in 6 vols., London, 1805,
pp. 275-76.)
Positive profit arises from “augmentation of labour, industry and
ingenuity”. How it arises from this Steuart makes no attempt to explain.
The further statement that the effect of this profit is to augment
and swell “the public good” seems
to indicate that Steuart means by it nothing but the greater mass of
use-values produced in consequence of the development of the productive powers
of labour, and that he thinks of this positive profit as quite distinct from
capitalists’ profit—which always presupposes an increase of exchange-value.
This interpretation is fully confirmed by his further exposition. He says to wit:
“In the price of goods, I consider two things
as really existing, and quite different from […] another;
[…] the real value of the commodity,
and the profit upon alienation” (l.c., p. 244).
The price of goods therefore comprises
two elements that are completely different from each other;
firstly their real value, secondly,
the profit upon alienation, the profit realised
through their transfer to another person, their sale.
||221| This profit upon
alienation therefore arises from the price of the goods
being greater than their real value, or from the goods being
sold above their value. Gain on the one side
therefore always involves loss on the other. No
addition to the general stock is created. Profit, that
is, surplus-value, is relative and resolves itself into
“a vibration of the balance of wealth between
parties”. Steuart himself rejects the idea that
surplus-value can be explained in this way. His theory
of “vibration of the balance of wealth between
parties”, however little it touches the nature and
origin of surplus-value itself, remains important in
considering the distribution of surplus-value among
different classes and among different categories such as
profit, interest and rent.
That Stuart limits all profit of the
individual capitalist to this “relative profit”, profit upon alienation, is
shown by the following:
The “real value”, he says, is determined by the
“quantity” of labour, which “upon an average, a workman of the country in
general may perform … in a day, a week, a month”. Secondly: “the value of the workman’s subsistence and necessary expense, both for supplying his personal
wants, and … the instruments belonging to his profession,
which must […] taken upon […] average as above …”
Thirdly: “… the values of the materials …” (l.c., pp.
244-45). “These three articles
being known, the price of manufacture is determined. It cannot be lower than
the amount of all the three, that is, than the real value; whatever is
higher, is the manufacturer’s profit. This will […] be
in proportion to demand, and therefore will fluctuate according
to circumstances” (l.c., p. 245). “Hence appears the necessity of a great demand,
in order to promote flourishing manufactures … the industrious […] regulate
their living and expense according to their certain profit” (l.c., p. 246).
From this it is clear that: The profit
of the “manufacturer”, of the individual capitalist, is always relative profit,
always profit upon alienation, always derived from the excess of the price of
the commodity over its real value, from its sale above its value. If
therefore all commodities were sold at their value, no profit would exist.
Steuart wrote a special chapter on this; he examines in detail:
“How profits consolidate into prime cost” (l.c., Vol.
III, p. 11sq.).
Steuart on the one hand rejects the conception of the
Monetary and Mercantile systems, according to which the sale
of commodities above their value, and the profit resulting
therefrom, creates surplus-value, a positive increase of
wealth.[1]
On the other hand he holds to their
view that the profit of the individual capital is nothing
but this excess of the price over the ||222| value, the profit upon
alienation. This however according to him is only
relative, the gain on the one side being compensated
by the loss on the other, and consequently this movement is
nothing more than “a vibration of the balance of
wealth between parties”.
In this respect Steuart is therefore the rational
expression of the Monetary and Mercantile systems.
His service to the theory of capital is that he shows how
the process of separation takes place between the conditions
of production, as the property of a definite class, and
labour-power. He gives a great deal of attention to
this genesis of capital — without as yet seeing
it directly as the genesis of capital, although he sees it
as a condition for large-scale industry. He examines
the process particularly in agriculture; and he rightly
considers that manufacturing industry proper only came into
being through this process of separation in
agriculture. In Adam Smith’s writings this process of
separation is assumed to be already completed.
(Steuart’s book [appeared in] 1767 in London, Turgot’s
[Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des
richesses was written in] 1766, Adam Smith’s [An
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
Nations] 1775.)
Author’s Footnotes
1
Even the Monetary system, however, thinks of this profit as
arising not within a country, but only in exchange with
other countries In this it remains stuck in the Mercantile
system [which assumed] that this value takes the form of
money (gold and silver) and the surplus-value is therefore
expressed in the balance of trade, which is settled with
money.